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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Kidnappings don’t often have happy endings. But a three-month-old baby abducted March 19 in León, Guanajuato, was discovered alive and well Sunday night.

Marco Iván Agustín Galindo was snatched from his mother’s arms by three men, one of them armed, in the Vibar neighborhood, a crime that subsequently provoked at least two protest marches by enraged mothers.

Twelve days after Marco Iván disappeared, three young men heard a cry as they walked past a pile of garbage on the sidewalk in the city’s Valle del Real neighborhood.

On top of the garbage and wrapped in blankets was a baby.

The authorities were notified and the infant was identified soon after as the missing youngster. Marco Iván was reunited the same evening with his parents, who had spent nearly two weeks in anguish over their lost son.

A medical examination found the baby was in good health and bore no signs of maltreatment by his captors.

Posted on: 31st March, 2015

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), on Thursday morning, 26th March, 3 prisoners in Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad were executed by hanging.

According to HRANA’s sources, the three men who had been convicted of drug crimes have not been identified yet and judiciary officials also have not given any information about them.

These executions are happening while, according to Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the death penalty in Iran over the past decade has been rising from 99 cases a year in 2004 to 687 in 2013.

Ahmad Shaheed in his latest report described the increasing rate of executions in Iran as “alarming” and urged to stop this process.

India halted oil imports from Iran for the first time in at least a decade in March as New Delhi responded to U.S. pressure to keep its shipments from Tehran within sanction limits during the last month of negotiations on a preliminary nuclear deal.

India is second-biggest buyer of Iranian oil on an annual basis after China, yet it did not take any crude from Tehran in March, according to tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.

Refinery sources in New Delhi told Reuters this was the first time in at least a decade that no imports were made over the space of a month - indicating how Washington is trying to maximise economic pressure on Tehran regime amid the talks aimed at stopping it from gaining the capacity to develop a nuclear bomb.

"There is pressure from the U.S. on all Asian buyers to stick to the sanctions regime," said Johannes Benigni, chairman of JBC Energy GmbH in Vienna.

The international sanctions aimed at pressuring the Iranian regime to stop nuclear activities currently restrict Iran's overall exports to 1 million-1.1 million bpd, with Asian buyers required to keep their purchases near end-2013 levels.

The Iranian regime and world powers are beginning a final day of talks to reach an outline agreement on the country’s nuclear program, with Germany’s foreign minister saying that negotiations are at a crucial stage, the Bloomberg reports.

“We’re in a bit of a crisis with the talks; perhaps we have a bit of a new approach, we will see,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters today. At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is returning to the talks, a sign that a deal is still within reach.

Talks are stuck on how to roll back the sanctions that have slashed Iran’s oil output, and how to re-impose them should Iran violate the agreement, a European diplomat who spoke on condition of not being identified said on Monday. Both sides are playing a high-stakes game of chicken and the situation was changing hour-by-hour, the negotiator said.

According to the Reuters: Officials in the Swiss city of Lausanne said talks on a framework accord, which is intended as a prelude to a comprehensive agreement by the end of June, could yet fall apart. They have set a deadline of midnight on Tuesday for a framework agreement, but officials from all sides say it was possible the talks could run past the deadline.

"There still remain some difficult issues," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN. "We are working very hard to work those through. We are working into the night."

As the ministers -- barring Russia's Sergei Lavrov, who was due back in Lausanne in the afternoon -- convened for the first plenary of the day, diplomats cautioned the talks could run deep into the early hours of Wednesday.

The Iranian regime has not backed down in any way, at any stage, from the positions with which it began the talks,MEMRI reports:

1. Tehran rejects the removal of its enriched uranium from Iran.

2. Tehran rejects a gradual lifting of the sanctions.

3. Tehran rejects restriction of the number of its centrifuges.

4. Tehran rejects intrusive inspections and snap inspections.

5. Tehran rejects any halt to its research and development activity.

6. Tehran rejects any change to the nature of its heavy water reactor at Arak.

7. Tehran rejects any closure of its secret enrichment site at Fordow.

8. Tehran rejects all restrictions to its nuclear activity following the agreement's expiration.

9. Tehran rejects the inclusion of its long-range missile program in the negotiations.

Pentagon has denied on Monday a claim by the Iranian state media saying that two Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen were killed by a US drone in the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

The official IRNA news agency has claimed that the two had been posted to Iraq as advisers in in Iraq before they were killed due to a drone strike in Tikrit.Pictures of the two men, named as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari, were posted on Iranian news websites after their funerals on home soil.The Fars news agency called Jafari, 29, from the northern Iranian city of Amol. Yazdani was buried in Tehran, it reported.However, the US Department of Defense said in a statement that it had not conducted air strikes in the Tikrit area on the date the men were said to have been killed.'Coalition forces initiated air strikes near Tikrit on March 25, two days after the alleged incident occurred and no air strikes were conducted in or near Tikrit on March 23,' said Major Omar Villarreal, a spokesman for US Central Command.'We have no information to corroborate claims that coalition air strikes killed two IRGC members,' he added, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have for weeks been heavily involved in fighting in Tikrit, seeking to reclaim the city from IS.Iranian media have reported the deaths of military personnel, including several generals, killed in Iraq and Syria after Tehran sent them in support of Baghdad’s government and of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.Other Iranians have joined Shiite militia groups as volunteers.Major General Qassem Suleimani, who leads the Quds Force, the Guard’s foreign wing, has been pictured on social media near the frontline in Tikrit and other battlegrounds, where he is said to be coordinating Shiite militia groups.Other Revolutionary Guard deaths have included General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, killed along with six fighters of Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah in an air strike in Syria on January 18.Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi, also a member of the Guard, was killed in the Iraq in December.Suleimani was pictured at a funeral ceremony for Taghavi.

WASHINGTON – At least one person died and two others were injured in a shootout at one of the entrances to the U.S. Army base in Maryland that houses the National Security Agency.

The dead man is one of the two attackers who early Monday morning, for reasons that are not yet clear, tried to get through one of the NSA entrances in an SUV.

Although the investigation into the incident is continuing and the secrecy that shrouds the NSA makes getting details about it difficult, terrorism has been ruled out as a motive.

According to a spokesman at Fort Meade, where 11,000 soldiers and 29,000 civilians live and/or work, police guarding the entrances to the NSA facilities opened fire on the vehicle that was trying to get past the control posts.

One of the people in the vehicle was killed on the spot while another was taken to a hospital in Baltimore. In addition, a police officer suffered an injury to an arm, possibly in a collision with the attackers’ vehicle.

According to NBC 4 television, the attackers were dressed as women and inside the vehicle were found a firearm and cocaine.

Images taken by TV helicopters flying over the area showed two vehicles that has collided, one of them clearly a police unit, as well as a body covered with a sheet lying on the asphalt a few yards from the gate to the NSA installation, which sits alongside the busy Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

The incident began when the two people in the vehicle refused to follow the directions of the guards at the Fort Meade gate to leave the high-security zone, where at that hour many workers with entry passes were being admitted.

The guards immediately responded to the situation by setting up barricades, but the driver of the vehicle did not stop until it had crashed into one of the police vehicles blocking access to the facility.

Police opened fire on the vehicle, killing one of the occupants.

The FBI said that there are no indications of any terrorist intent, but the investigation is continuing to determine, among other things, why the attackers were dressed as women.

MEXICO CITY – Federal Police officers rescued 18 women who were being sexually exploited in Ecatepec, a city in Mexico State, and arrested two suspects, the National Security Commission said.

Federal law enforcement agents following up on an anonymous tip confirmed that illegal activities were taking place at the Flamingo taco shop in the Ejidos de San Cristobal district of the city, the commission said in a statement.

Customers were invited into an area in the rear of the shop that had been outfitted as a bar and “where acts of sexual exploitation were presumably carried out,” the commission said.

A special Federal Police unit raided the store, where they found 18 women who appeared to have been victimized, the commission said.

Alberto Silva Vazquez, suspected of running the establishment, was arrested on people trafficking and sexual exploitation charges, the commission said.

Officers also arrested Erick Sebastian Vazquez Nuñez, who was in possession of a 9-mm pistol, ammunition and cash.

The suspects and the property seized were turned over to prosecutors in Mexico State, which surrounds the Federal District and forms part of the Mexico City metropolitan area.

“I just don’t understand why we would sign an agreement with a group of people who have no intention of keeping their word.”

The Ohio Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he’s skeptical the Obama administration will reach a deal with Iran to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Frankly, we should have kept the sanctions in place so that we could have gotten to a real agreement,” he said.

The tense international negotiations aimed at preventing the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons are headed down to the wire with prospects darkening after Tehran rejected what Western negotiators consider a critical part of any deal.

For months, the Iranian regime tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday deputy foreign minister of the clerical regime made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that has cost the country billions of dollars to amass.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Sunday the U.S. Congress must review any agreement the U.S. and other world powers may reach with the Iranian regime on curbing its nuclear program.

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey said he has “real concerns” over the talks and that he wouldn’t support any deal that leaves Iran a “threshold nuclear” state, according to Bloomberg.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker has said the panel will consider legislation on April 14 that he is co-sponsoring with Menendez, which would allow Congress to review and approve a final agreement.

“This bill is a good bill and I’d hoped the administration would have supported it,” Menendez said Sunday at a synagogue in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. “We are going to have to see what the agreement is and what are the mechanisms for verification. There needs to be a very robust inspection.”

Sunday, March 29, 2015

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – A councilman in Tlaquepaque, a city in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, was gunned down this weekend, a police spokesman told Efe.

Feliciano Garcia Fierros was killed as he left a meeting with bus operators around noon Saturday in the San Martin de las Flores district of Tlaquepaque.

The 49-year-old politician was attacked by three heavily armed men and investigators do not yet have any suspects in the case.

The councilman was shot in the left side of the head and died instantly, police said.

Garcia Fierros’s 25-year-old son, Alejandro Garcia, was wounded and is listed in serious condition at a hospital.

Investigators found shell casings from automatic rifles at the crime scene.

There are no indications that the councilman received death threats or had any problems with people that could have led to his murder, Tlaquepaque Mayor Ernesto Meza Tejeda told Efe.

Garcia Fierros belonged to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and chaired the municipal regulations commission in Tlaquepaque, which is in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

The city government is awaiting the results of the investigation being conducted by the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office before deciding whether to increase security for top municipal officials, Meza Tejeda said.

MORELIA, Mexico – Police in the western Mexican state of Michoacan arrested early Saturday nearly 200 college students after they clashed in the historic downtown of the state capital of Morelia, leaving dozens of students, officials, paramedics and firefighters injured.

At about 4:10 a.m., 200 state police officers burst into the Nicolaita hostel for needy students, located in Avenida Francisco I. Madera, where hours before the inhabitants had set fire to a patrol car.

A similar operation to remove protesters was carried out simultaneously at the Dos de Octubre hostel, where a state government vehicle had been burned the previous evening.

Police made a surprise raid on both hostels, which sparked a clash with tear gas, clubs and rocks, which ended two hours later with the arrest of 198 students, most of them from other states around the country.

Also taking part in the operation were federal police officers, who surrounded other student hostels to stop their inhabitants from coming to the aid of their classmates, since all of them belong to the Committee of Embattled University Students, or CUL, and the Movement of the Hopeful and the Rejected, or MAR.

CUL and MAR are still holding eight other state vehicles that they commandeered on Thursday during a series of street blockades demanding that Gov. Fausto Vallejo provide them with 18 vans, supposedly to inform would-be students in rural communities about the Michoacan University of San Nicolas de Hidalgo, or UMSNH, application process.

Before the police operation, the state government announced that it would not negotiate with the dissenters until they returned the vehicles and freed the streets in Morelia’s historic downtown, describing the pressure they were applying as “blackmail.”

On his Twitter account, Gov. Vallejo justified the police action by tweeting that “without violating university sovereignty, today we have acted according to the law.”

Those under arrest were driven in trucks to the installations of the state Attorney General’s Office, where dozens of them were attended by paramedics before they were booked.

Thousands of Morelia inhabitants have shown their support for the state government on various social networks, since the students living in the hostels are continuously blockading streets, seizing cars and paralyzing the UMSNH to demand funds and passing grades for those who have failed the entrance exam.

Michoacan has 35 student hostels that receive government subsidies and where some 5,000 UMSNH students live, most of them from other states.

At the beginning of every school year, CUL and MAR influence more than 50,000 UMSNH students to paralyze the different faculties as a way of negotiating the acceptance of would-be students who were denied admission to the university.

Khamenei orders heightened executions and rocket attack on Camp Liberty to control the situation inside the country, following the “Decisive Storm” operation

NCRI - The Supreme Leader of the Iranian regime, Ali Khamenei, fearful of the reverberations of the Arab coalition’s ‘Decisive Storm’ military operation against occupation of Yemen by the clerical regime's mercenaries, and to control the situation domestically, has ordered his regime’s officials to increase secret and overt executions, and the regime's Quds Force has missioned its Iraqi proxy group Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq to conduct rocket and terrorist attacks against Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport that houses Iranian opposition members.

In order to prepare the ground for criminal attacks against Camp Liberty, the Iranian regime’s terrorist Quds Force has tasked its mercenaries in Iraq to disseminate misinformation about the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in their affiliated news outlets claiming PMOI collaborating with Daesh (ISIS). This includes a TV program called Al-Ahd run by Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.

Noting the repeated written commitments by the US government and the United Nations with regards to the security and well-being of Camp Liberty residents, the Iranian Resistance calls on the UN Security Council and the US government to adopt necessary political and security measures to prevent terrorist and rocket attacks against the camp.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of IranMarch 29, 2015

Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen will continue until Shiite rebels there 'withdraw and surrender their weapons,' AP reported on the outcome of the summit of Arab leaders’ decision in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Sunday, as they also agreed in principle to forming a joint military force.The decision by the Arab League puts it on a path to potentially more aggressively challenge Shiite power Iran, which is backing the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis.A Saudi-led coalition began bombing Yemen on Thursday, saying it was targeting the Houthis and their allies, which include forces loyal to Yemen’s former leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.At the summit, held in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby read a final communiqué outlining the leaders’ views.'Yemen was on the brink of the abyss, requiring effective Arab and international moves after all means of reaching a peaceful resolution have been exhausted to end the Houthi coup and restore legitimacy,' Elaraby said.The Houthis began their offensive in September, seizing the capital, Sanaa, and later holding embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi under house arrest. The rebels ultimately took over government in Yemen and ultimately forced Hadi to flee the country in recent days.Speaking at the summit Saturday, Hadi directly accused Iran of being behind the Houthi offensive, raising the specter of a regional conflict.Speaking after Elaraby, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said leaders also agreed in principle to creating a joint Arab military force. He said a high-level panel will work under the supervision of Arab chiefs of staff to work out the structure and mechanism of the force.Egyptian military and security officials have said the proposed force would be made of up to 40,000 elite troops and will be headquartered in either Cairo or Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The force would be backed by jet fighters, warships and light armor.Now in its fourth day, the Saudi-led airstrike campaign has pushed Houthi rebels out of contested air bases and destroyed any jet fighter remaining in Yemen, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri said.The strikes also continued to target Scud missiles in Yemen, leaving most of their launching pads 'devastated,' according to remarks carried Saturday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. However, he warned that the rebels could control more of the missiles. His account could not be immediately corroborated.Meanwhile Sunday, Pakistan dispatched a plane to the Yemeni city of Hodeida, hoping to evacuate some 500 citizens gathered there, said Shujaat Azim, an adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister. Azim told state-run Pakistan Television more flights would follow as those controlling Yemen’s airports allowed them.Pakistan says some 3,000 of its citizens live in Yemen.

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran on Friday to take “the decisions necessary” to resolve the remaining issues so a framework accord on Tehran’s nuclear program can be reached before Tuesday, the White House said.

In a communique, the White House said that Obama and Merkel spoke on the phone about the ongoing negotiations to reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program before the cutoff date next Tuesday, March 31.

Both leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to achieving a long term comprehensive deal that fully and verifiably ensures that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful,” the White House said.

The final phase of negotiations began Friday in the Swiss city of Lausanne with a new meeting between Iran and the United States, and the talks will grow more intense this weekend with the confirmed presence of several foreign ministers of the P5+1 Group.

The P5+1 Group is made up of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – plus Germany, but those who have led the negotiations in recent weeks are the delegations of Iran and the U.S.

All have tried for 10 years, and particularly for the last two years, to reach an accord to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful uses, and in exchange, the regime of the ayatollahs would have the economic sanctions lifted that are decimating its economy.

The time for reaching the framework accord ends next Tuesday and, should it be achieved, the following three months will be used to hammer out the technical details in order to finalize the pact by June 30.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday during his daily press conference that Obama receives daily updates on the negotiations with Iran and recalled that reaching an accord is high on his list of priorities

A group of political prisoners in Iran issued a statement condemning the meddling and aggressions of the clerical regime in Yemen.

The statement by the political prisoner who are being held in Gohardasht Prison in the city of Karaj described the ‘the war and violence in Yemen’ as a definite consequence of the West’s policy of appeasement’ towards the Iranian regime which refer to as Daesh (IS) ruling Iran.

The statement which was published in a number of Persian language websites said: “The war and violence in Yemen is a definite consequence of the appeasement policy by the Obama administration vis-à-vis the aggressive policies of the Daeshs ruling Iran throughout the region.”

The statement added: “This ludicrous and contradictory policy of the government of the United States has led the regime ruling Iran to abuse the power vacuum in the Middle East and to now engulf the region in total violence, insecurity and war.”

As chaos and bloodshed have spread in the Middle East the White House is facing heavy pressure from its traditional Sunni Arab allies, Congress and some in the U.S. military to confront Iran more forcefully over its support for militant groups, the Washington Post reports.

Although the U.S. has supported the Saudi-led attacks in Yemen with intelligence and logistical help, and in Iraq, has pressured Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to disentangle Iranian-backed groups from government forces in exchange for the firepower of U.S. warplanes over the city of Tikrit, the critics of Administration believe the push to confront the Iranian regime has come too late.

Some former senior U.S. military commanders, meanwhile, said they have been warning for years of the need to do more to deal with what they see as Iran’s efforts to sow chaos through its armed proxies, the Post reported.

Ret. Marine Gen. James Mattis, who oversaw U.S. forces in the Middle East from 2010 to 2013, was among the most insistent voices inside the U.S. military pushing for a policy focused on punishing Iran and its proxies.

Former defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy deliberations has said that Mattis ‘pressed for more covert actions to capture or kill Iranian operatives, especially after the foiled 2011 plot by Iran to kill the Saudi ambassador at a Washington restaurant.’

According to the Washington Post, 'Middle East experts said the Obama administration’s efforts to avoid wading into sectarian civil war has unnerved the closest U.S. allies and emboldened Iran.'

“A vacuum was created that Iran exploited,” Martin Indyk, executive vice president of the Brookings Institution and Obama’s former Middle East envoy, wrote in an e-mail. “Now we have to make a choice. Not taking a stand in Syria was the original mistake that helped to open the gates of hell.”

Saturday, March 28, 2015

In an interview with a German daily Mrs Maryam Rajavi , the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) warned that mullahs in Tehran will not give up the nuclear bomb. She also warned against the Iranian regime’s increasing interference in the neighboring Iraq.“The mullahs’ regime has never been a reliable negotiating partner and it cannot be one. This is a proven fact. We have been witnessing 30 years of concealment and deception. The Iranian Resistance divulged a secret nuclear site just in the midst of the recent talks. I think this regime will never give up its nuclear program, voluntarily,” she said in the interview published on March 6 in West Dutche Allgemeine Zeitung.“Given the present policy of the West, especially the US, they will never forget about the nuclear bomb. They have been continuing their project to this very day, because they feel the price they pay for not abiding by international laws is much too small. This regime must be compelled through international pressure and sanctions to fully implement the UN Security Council resolutions, fully halt its enrichment activities, and accept intrusive inspections.”On the growing interference by the Iranian regime in Iraq, Mrs Rajavi said: “Unfortunately, as a result of the wrong policy of the US and the West, the hegemony in Iraq has fallen into the hands of the Iranian regime step by step since 2003. With the fall of Nouri Al-Maliki this influence was undermined to a great extent, but the only solution for Iraq and the first step in any attempt to solve the problem of Islamic fundamentalism is the eviction of Iran’s regime from Iraq.”“The militias are fully under the control and command of the Iranian regime. They have an extremely destructive role. Under the name of fighting ISIS, they have carried out the genocide of the Sunni populace. This is a crime against humanity and fuels the Shiite-Sunni sectarian war for years to come.

GUATEMALA CITY – Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said that accusations of a cover-up leveled by deceased Prosecutor Nisman against President Cristina Fernandez are all “made up,” after an Argentine court ratified dismissal of the case.

Timerman spoke on Thursday during a visit to Guatemala.

The case against Fernandez filed by Nisman alleged her involvement in a cover-up of links between Iran and terrorists responsible for a 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building which left 85 dead.

Nisman was found dead in his home, under circumstances still not clear, four days after filing the case and on the eve of an appearance before Congress to outline his case, which also implicated Timerman in the cover-up.

“There is nothing of the kind denounced by Nisman, all that is said is totally false. All the dialogues attributed to me do not exist; the meetings that they say happened, never happened,” said Timerman.

He insisted that the Argentine government wants to resolve the bombing case, the country’s worst terrorist attac

AFP - 27 March 20 15 - The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen is aimed at marking the kingdom’s territory in the face of Iran’s rising regional influence, analysts say.Backed by a coalition of Arab allies, Saudi Arabia launched air strikes this week against Shiite Huthi rebels who had been advancing on President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s stronghold of Aden in southern Yemen.Hadi fled to Aden last month after escaping house arrest in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, which the Huthis seized last year.

Supported by the West and Sunni Gulf Arab monarchies, Hadi’s government has accused Tehran of backing the rebels in a bid to extend its influence in Yemen.As the main powers on the opposite sides of Islam’s Sunni-Shiite divide, Saudi Arabia and Iran are vying for influence in countries across the region.But for the Saudis, the possibility of a Tehran-backed Shiite minority seizing control of its southern neighbour was cause for enough concern to move beyond rhetoric and proxies, analysts say.The intervention was 'a last-minute move to prevent Yemen from becoming an Iranian colony,' said Antoine Basbous, head of the Paris-based Observatory of Arab Countries.'The kingdom had no choice but to intervene,' said London-based analyst Abdelwahab Badrkhan, adding that the intervention marked a 'revival' of Saudi influence among Gulf Arab states, who have increasingly been charting their own path.Saudi fears of a pro-Iran Yemen are shared by its fellow Sunni Arab nations, in particular Egypt whose air force and navy are taking part in the operation.Cairo has even said it is prepared to send troops to take part in the operation, though there has been no indication yet from Saudi Arabia of a ground offensive.While impoverished and lacking in natural resources, Yemen is strategically located in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, along key shipping routes.The Huthi advance in southern Yemen was threatening not only Aden but the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital corridor through which much of the world’s maritime trade passes.Nearly 40 percent of global maritime trade is estimated to pass through the strait, much of it on its way to and from theSuez Canal .Saudi analyst and writer Khaled Batarfi said the kingdom’s new ruler -- King Salman, who took over after the death of his brother King Abdullah in January -- had laid the groundwork for the intervention.'This was the first time that King Salman faced such a challenge and found himself forced to use military force,' he said.But 'this was not decided hastily, it was preceded by Arab coordination,' he said.

NCRI - On the eve of the Arab Summit, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, reiterated on the need for joint action and unity against the religious terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran and its export of terrorism and belligerence. She said: “The coalition against occupation of Yemen by the mercenaries of the Iranian regime was necessary and inevitable. But this legitimate and just defense should be expanded to throughout the region to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The religious dictatorship ruling Iran and its mercenaries should be evicted from these countries.”

Mrs. Rajavi drew the attention of the Arab summit to the important reality that the clerical regime’s belligerence and war-mongering in the region does not stem from its strength and prowess. Rather, it is to cover up the regime’s irreparable and acute political, social, and economic crisis that are exacerbating continuously. This regime has no choice but to retreat when faced with firmness. This is whilst, appeasement and offering concessions has only emboldened it in aggression and occupation. The velayat-e-faqih regime (rule of the clergy) is the root cause of crises in the region and the only solution is through firmness and evicting this regime from the region and its overthrow.

The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of IranMarch 28, 2015

Friday, March 27, 2015

The US Senate voted unanimously on Thursday for an amendment to a budget bill that will ease Congress' ability to re-impose sanctions against Iran if it violates a nuclear deal.

Republican Senator Mark Kirk, of Illinois, who sponsored the amendment said on Twitter: "With 100-0 vote on my Iran sanctions amendment today, Senate is speaking in a clear and unified voice against Iranian regime."

The amendment will cover the cost of imposing sanctions if Iran breaks any existing or future nuclear agreement.

Kirk indicated that the passage of this amendment "signals the Senate's strong support for the Kirk-Menendez Iran sanctions bill, which stands ready now for a full Senate vote."

Kirk is deeply skeptical of international negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. He co-authored a bill that would tighten sanctions on Tehran, which President Barack Obama has threatened to veto as a threat to delicate international negotiations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday the senate would vote on Kirk's sanctions bill if international negotiators miss their deadline at the end of this month for reaching a framework nuclear agreement

"Venezuela is ready for dialogue based on respect and terms of equality among States with the government of President Barack Obama wherever, whenever, and however he wants; I state it as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela: we are ready," stressed on Thursday Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro reckoned that respect was pivotal to engage in such dialogue.

"If President Obama wants to shake this hand, the hand of a Venezuelan, of a patriot son of Bolívar, son of Chávez, then I am ready, I am ready to shake his hand, to talk to him looking into his eyes in equal terms," the President added.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

NCRI - Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the joint action by Arab countries against the Iranian regime’s occupation and aggression in Yemen as an extremely essential and inevitable united action which the Iranian Resistance had previously called for.

Rajavi called for the thorough expansion of this just and legitimate defense against religious fascism in Iran and its mercenaries throughout the region including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

She added that the root cause of the crises in the region is the mullahs’ regime, recognized as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. As such, Rajavi pointed out that the only viable solution is resolve against this regime, its eviction from the region, and the toppling of the clerical regime in Iran.

Since 12 years ago, the Iranian Resistance -- that itself was the first whistle blower on mullahs projects to acquire a nuclear bomb -- has repeatedly warned that the Iranian regime’s interferences in Iraq and other countries in the region is one hundred times more dangerous than its nuclear program.

Mrs. Rajavi reiterated that the rationale behind the growing aggression of the regime in the region is to cloak its irreparable crises and its total bankruptcy.

She added that the policy of appeasement and conciliation towards this regime has encouraged the mullahs in their aggressive policies.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of IranMarch 26, 2015